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It seems from the comment discussion at this question that perhaps we need to revisit the issue of questions from graduate-level texts. I must confess to finding Sam Nead's position overly doctrinaire, but perhaps I am out of step with the community consensus.
Thoughts?
There is no deterministic way of knowing a priori to asking that the answer is "a straightforward argument".
I thought the math level of the question was fine, but I agree with Sam Nead that solutions to problems in books should not be posted on MO.
Sam: the "oh-so-convenient pile of solutions" won't be reality anyway, unless somebody actively tries to create such a pile. Chances are that, already now, the solution to every single problem in that book is out in the wild, semi-immortalized somewhere on the arXiv, gen.lib.rus.ec, MathOverflow or another place online (in the case of Thurston's book, probably many things are corollaries of results proven in standard different geometry treatises), but as long as nobody collects these solutions into that "convenient pile", corrects the mistakes, collects all the non-canonical results from outside the book that they use, etc. etf., there will be substantial effort required to use these as a free solution manual.
Reality check: There have been various projects to collect solutions to Hartshorne's Algebraic Geometry online. Neither of them is anywhere like complete; probably the best places to get solutions for Hartshorne problems are still EGA and Liu's book, neither of which has been created with this intention. Most of these internet projects only cover the problems their author has been assigned for homework in his course (and these problems often are known results anyway). Many solutions are written in a terse enough style that one is left wondering whether they are solutions at all. I think the largest collection of Hartshorne solutions on the internet has so many completely wrong solutions that I am surprised anybody could have a use for it at all.
Sam,
Your first comment on the thread linked by Yemon begins "I think this question is better suited for stackexchange." Why is it that you prefer lists of solutions to the problems in Thurston's book to appear on mathSE?
My own opinion is that discouraging this type of question is bad for MO. It needs a certain number of questions at this level to continue being entertaining for people who like answering grad level questions in their own area---everybody likes a little diversion now and then. And on the other hand, it's good if it continues being a place where mathematicians can come for help outside their own area. It would be a shame if MathSE took over that role.
@Sam: It seems to me that your objection to the question is that it tells you where it is coming from. If Lucy had asked the same question, leaving out the bit about where the question came from, would you still object? Both answers seem difficult to defend. Either way, I guess the argument would have to boil down to, "people (either including or excluding Lucy) should work some things out for themselves."
First of all, there is nothing you can do to keep people from cheating. Answers to answered questions are increasingly more available. Secondly, this is a good thing. Sure, it builds your character to work out many things in mathematics, but you don't refrain from reading books and papers which just give you the answers. Moreover, there is no amount of hand-holding which will make mathematics easy. Understanding the answers is more often than not enough of an exercise in itself. And even if it weren't, it's not like we're in danger of running out of new mathematics.
The "people should work things out for themselves" objection to MO (or to certain questions) simply doesn't withstand scrutiny.
My own opinion is that discouraging this type of question is bad for MO. It needs a certain number of questions at this level to continue being entertaining for people who like answering grad level questions in their own area---everybody likes a little diversion now and then. And on the other hand, it's good if it continues being a place where mathematicians can come for help outside their own area.
Yes! Aside from making it easier to get your little lemmas outside of your area out of the way, wonderful mathematics gets done when the asker and answerer discover they have complementary skill sets which together can tackle some new problem.
I'll backtrack slightly: some questions from textbooks do make good MO questions; such as this one
But IMO MO should not include a repository of answers to questions from textbooks.
Sam,
I haven't the slightest idea who you are, and I assume that you are much less grating in person than online. Pseudonymity has its advantages! An informal poll of colleagues suggests that a large plurality of mathematicians believe that online discussion of textbook problems, especially outside one's area, can be a fun&rewarding way to spend an afternoon; your eagerness to impose a gag order on MO to avoid spoiling a few exercises seems pretty selfish to us. The OP was direct and honest: she had tried hard to solve the problem and came to MO asking for help after that failed. You're interfering with the proper functioning of the site.
I could have gone to the board and bleated out the eigenvalue answer, but then neither of us would have learned much.
I disagree, but if you feel doing that is a waste of time, don't do it. To answer your counterhypothetical, if I see it as my job to teach them the material, I suppose I would try to have a leading conversation like what you describe. But I treat fellow MOers as colleagues, not as students. If a fellow postdoc or a professor in another field came to my office and asked me such a question, I would be horrified at the thought of coyly withholding the answer to the precise question they had asked me, saying something like, "if I tell you, neither of us will learn anything."
I've read the whole list of comments twice and I find the implication of sexism extraordinary. Assuming there are no deleted comments I did not see, there is absolutely no indication whatsoever of sexism on the part of any of the participants.
I think MO should simply not tolerate such behavior. Today, in some contexts, such an accusation could have serious, concrete consequences. But that is really secondary: this is simply dishonest, hurtful behavior.
I would have expected the normal procedure in which comments get deleted by flagging to take place, but the comment instead got 13 upvotes! I cannot explain this. To make things worse, the accusation comes from an anonymous participant! As I have said repeatedly, I have absolutely no problem with anonymous participation, but I think there should be basic rules of behavior for people who choose to remain anonymous: this particular situation should be unacceptable.
PS: As of now, I cannot find Benjamin on the site using the obvious alternatives for user names nor the less obvious JRLHD.
Preserving comment threads on meta is standard practice for long comment threads that get off the topic of mathematics. We want to be able to refer to the record of what was said without leaving it up on the main site.
Dear bsteinberg,
Since I upvoted Lucy's comment, perhaps I owe you an explanation.
My perception is that Mathoverflow has lately become much less friendly to newcomers, including professional mathematicians and advanced graduate students. There have been several recent instances of questions that were clearly not undergraduate-level from new users who were advised to post on math.SE instead (sometimes with the incorrect suspicion that their questions were homework). Especially in this particular case, I am doubtful whether math.SE would have been a good fit, simply because of the current (small) group of expert mathematicians on the website (who lean mostly towards algebra and number theory), although Ryan Budney might have answered it; my impression of math.SE is that, unlike MO, it is not primarily academic mathematicians who answer most of the questions there (even the more advanced ones).
I am somewhat uncomfortable with this trend, and I know I would probably have left the community if my first post had occasioned such a controversy. Similarly, if I asked a senior mathematician that I did not know previously a question that came up in my reading, and was told the question was too elementary for them, I would probably be reluctant to contact them again. The effect would probably be heightened on a widely read professional board. As far as I understand, MO was (at least initially) supposed to cater to mathematicians in the way a large seminar might: that is, questions asked by an outsider that a specialist might find elementary were to be welcome. If this has changed, perhaps the FAQ should be updated to reflect this. However, I suspect such a change would make MO much less useful for many of its users: I know I at least have learned a lot from non-specialist questions, and the votes that some of them have gotten suggests others have as well.
Moreover, I think the trend tends to affect new users more; for instance, when I asked an elementary algebraic geometry question a year back, I received several helpful answers and comments. Had I been a new user then, I suspect the outcome would have been different. It seems a bit unfortunate to me that new users do not receive the same generosity or at least benefit of the doubt.
Finally, it was not my belief that you or your particular comments were sexist that prompted me to upvote Lucy's remark; rather, it was the (possibly incorrect) suspicion that users with female usernames may be, in general, more likely to attract such comments (in general).
Regards,
Akhil
N.B. As I am a student with fairly little experience in the mathematical community, who uses MO almost exclusively to ask rather than answer questions, my post should probably be assigned correspondingly little weight.
Thank you, Anton, for injecting some level-headedness into this discussion. I particularly liked your "How would you respond if a colleague knocked on you door with such a question?" standard.
Like many of the other commenters in this thread, I am unhappy with the level of nit-picking and fussiness with which first time questioners are often confronted. I wish that those of you who frequently write such critiques would back off a notch or two. Even if you don't mean to be unfriendly or unhelpful, it often comes across that way. (Just to clarify, I'm not talking about 90-95% of the questions which get closed or criticized. I'm talking about the remaining 5-10% which are asked in good faith by research mathematicians or grad students.)
@bsteinberg: I can understand why you are upset, but I think Lucy's comment fell slightly short of accusing you of sexism. I upvoted Lucy's comment [at least I think I did; it's now been deleted so I can't confirm], but it was because I thought there had been too much nitpicking of her question, not because I supported her suggestion that sexism might be playing a role. I don't think you were being sexist.
@markvs: Perhaps your remark about "psychological problems" was some sort of well-intentioned joke, but I kind of doubt it. If, as I suspect, it was intended as a criticism of the OP, then I think it is a pretty obnoxious thing to write here, and also completely unsupported by anything written in the comment thread. You might want to consider retracting it. If I've misunderstood your intensions I apologize.
I agree that this thread needs closing soon.
I want to interject one last thing, though. @bsteinberg, did you consider simply answering "No, it had nothing to do with you being a woman." in response to Lucy's question? I didn't interpret what she wrote as an accusation of sexism on your part. I think it's essential that when people feel that are being mistreated inappropriately, they are allowed to bring this up without starting a huge fight. I think both sides were too quick to anger, but directly clarifying your intent might well have helped. (Don't feel I'm trying to single you out; I tried and failed to contact Lucy via her account's provided email address.)
Before the thread gets closed, can I thank everyone for their responses and clarifications - I was otherwise occupied yesterday so could not contribute. I had intended the question to be more about the practice of asking questions from said books, especially since I originally opened a MSE account solely for the purpose of asking how one solves one of the exercises in Isaacs's book on character theory, and since got the impression that the question could have been acceptable for MO.
Regarding the other discussions: I will also own up to being one of those 13 upvotes on the comment left by Lucy, and I am very sorry for any insult it has caused Ben. My hasty reading of the comment caused me to upvote, based on the 1st part ("other people have not been treated this way") for reasons similar to those mentioned by Akhil Matthew. Since I had no supposition that Ben was being sexist, as I recall full well the example he gives above where a male student was given the same advice, I did not really register that the second part of Lucy's comment could be interpreted as an accusation against him in particular. (It's unfortunate that one cannot rescind votes on comments.)
I also agree wholeheartedly with what Ben has said in his last comment, and hope that he will in time return to MO in some capacity.
Back to the original subject: here is another... http://mathoverflow.net/questions/87085/maximal-cohen-macaulay-module
I agree completely with David:
I want MO to be a place that I can come ask basic questions in fields that I am just getting into
and with Yemon:
I would remind some people above that one of the original aims of MO (in my understanding) is that people in one area, faced with a question they can't yet solve but which they think should be easy for a specialist in another area, can put the question here.
I already feel more hesitation than I used to when asking questions outside my own field (which is basically all the questions I ever ask). These days, when I'm building up to asking, I imagine people grumping at me that this is standard fourth-semester graduate material (or whatever), and I should run along to stackexchange. I think MO is losing something, and it makes me sad.
@markvs; remember that email addresses are not verified by the software. I have been unable to contact 'Lucy', and personally have no idea who she is.
Dear Ben Steinberg,
thanks for your reply; I appreciate that the timing was very unfortunate, and I appreciate how seeing that comment with 10 votes may have felt like an attack. I wasn't trying to accuse you of overreacting, just trying to work out how to deal with this and similar issues. Quoting Ben Webster (sorry Ben, this is from private email) "What sort of environment are we setting up if even asking the question if something was motivated by gender is beyond the pale?". (For context, Ben is criticizing my suggestion to migrate the comment thread over to meta, as we eventually did.) Questions about motivation by gender, or even outright accusations of sexism, can be answered --- especially in this case where you were able to give a clear (and to me, convincing) answer --- not just rejected. At the same time, I understand feeling that you're unjustly accused is very unpleasant. I hope some of the comments above from people who had upvoted Lucy's comment have reassured you somewhat.
best regards, Scott Morrison